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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24837379">Tear It Down Piece By Piece</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiikavon/pseuds/saiikavon'>saiikavon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Needs a Hug, Angst, Character Study, Episode: s03 Chat Blanc, Episode: s03 Chat Blanc Spoilers, Gen, Introspection, Time Travel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:21:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,132</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24837379</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiikavon/pseuds/saiikavon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing Bunnyx should have done was go straight to Ladybug. It would have been the fastest way to end things, the safest way. She couldn’t afford to break the chain that had been building up, link by link, to connect her to the future she knew.</p><p>Yet, those blue eyes, daggers of ice, seemed to stare directly into the secrecy of her Burrow, and she couldn’t ignore the chill that penetrated her very core. It was like he knew she was watching, and was waiting for her to show herself. She shouldn’t. She knew she shouldn’t.</p><p>But she did.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir &amp; Alix Kubdel, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>160</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Tear It Down Piece By Piece</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first thing Bunnyx should have done was go straight to Ladybug. It would have been the fastest way to end things, the safest way. She couldn’t afford to break the chain that had been building up, link by link, to connect her to the future she knew.</p><p>	Yet, those blue eyes, daggers of ice, seemed to stare directly into the secrecy of her Burrow, and she couldn’t ignore the chill that penetrated her very core. It was like he knew she was watching, and was waiting for her to show herself. She shouldn’t. She knew she shouldn’t.</p><p>	But she did.</p><p>	He was facing away from her when she emerged, staring out at the shattered moon, looking eerie yet not out of place in this silent and sterile background. The air was still and empty, the sky a strange, milky hue that made light colors blinding and darker colors bleed into everything else. He was the starkest image of all, white and pale and wrong from head to toe. She might have taken him for a statue were it not for the steady twitch of his tail behind him.</p><p>	Her tongue suddenly felt very heavy in her mouth, and she couldn’t think of what to say. But it seemed that he was expecting her, after all.</p><p>	“…did you know?” he asked. His voice sounded hollow, like all the emotion had been drained from him as well as the color. Her heart raced as she tried to figure out what he meant—did she know this would happen? No, of course she didn’t. This future wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen.</p><p>	When she didn’t answer, he turned to her, tail now flicking sharply, playful, yet menacing. There was a grin on his face while those harsh blue eyes accused her of something she couldn’t name.</p><p>	“What’s the matter? <i>Chat</i> got your tongue?”</p><p>	Bunnyx swallowed, and stood her ground. Tried to match the playful energy he exuded, hoping to balance out the <i>fury</i> settling deep in his core. At least, until she could figure out what happened.</p><p>	“You’re gonna have to be more specific, Whiskers,” she said. “I jump around the timestream a lot, you know. I know a lot of things.”</p><p>	The grin disappeared, replaced by a venomous scowl. “<i>Did you know</i>,” he hissed, “<i>that Hawk Moth was my father</i>?”</p><p>	Oh. <i>Oh</i>.</p><p>	She took a moment to look at him again, at the smaller details—the lines of his stick-thin frame, the soft roundness of his face, and that <i>bell</i>, how had she missed the bell? This was before he’d grown into himself, become a man, long before he felt like he really had a place to call home, or someone to go home to. The bell glinted at her almost like it was mocking her, letting her know exactly who she was facing. In that moment, her mood sobered, sadness joining the fear that still clung to her heart.</p><p>	“Yes. I knew.”</p><p>	At her response, his scowl deepened, the glare in his eyes so utterly <i>dangerous</i> that she found herself taking a step back. For a split second she thought she could hear Fluff’s voice in her head screaming, <i>“Predator! Run!”</i></p><p>	But then his expression shifted again, and he threw his head back and <i>laughed</i>. His body shook with it, his arms winding around his middle while it bubbled out of him. She watched in stricken silence until the laughter finally began to trickle away, the remnants of it stifled when he put a gloved hand to his mouth. The anger never left his eyes.</p><p>	“Of course,” he said. “Of course you did. And why didn’t you tell me? No, no, I think I can guess—<i>Ladybug</i> said not to, right?”</p><p>	Bunnyx flinched. “There’s a right time for everything, Chat Noir. Ladybug knows that. I know you don’t like secrets, but—”</p><p>	His eyes went wide and strangely innocent as he interrupted her, waving his hands in an insistent manner. “Oh, no, don’t get me wrong! I’m not angry at my lady, no, no. I could never be angry at her. My sweet, perfect Marinette.”</p><p>	At that, Bunnyx’s breath caught. “You know her identity.” Well, that just made everything a whole lot more complicated.</p><p>	He ignored her, carrying on, a growl rising in his throat. “But you…<i>you knew</i>. You could have done <i>something</i>. You could have taken his Miraculous away before he could hurt anyone else…before he could find out…before he could <i>take her away from me</i>.”</p><p>	Bunnyx tried to fit the pieces into place. Hawk Moth, revealed, but nowhere to be found. Chat Noir, cloaked in white, all alone, with no Ladybug to save him. Somehow all their secrets were blown wide open, and Hawk Moth had done the most monstrous thing he could have done, akumatizing his own son. His own son, who now stood in the ruins of what could only be his own destructive power, the only one left to suffer the consequences of his father’s selfishness.</p><p>	Before she could even consider where this all started, Chat Noir charged at her with a scream of rage, wielding a crackling ball of light. She jumped out of the way just in time and pulled her umbrella in front of her like a staff.</p><p>	“I don’t want to fight you!” she cried. He charged at her again, not listening. She dodged him, twice, eyes darting between his movements and the powered-up Cataclysm he was aiming at her. Her heart nearly stopped dead in her chest as his claws swiped past her, allowing her to feel the heat of the Cataclysm against her face.</p><p>	“Go back! Go back and fix this!” There was desperation in him, now, rough against the anger, making his voice crack, his eyes turning glassy. She could see him lost in a memory even as he swept his claws at her again and again.</p><p>	“Go back!”</p><p>	Bunnyx ducked another swing and rolled away. He turned on his heel, following through, but she jumped out of the way.</p><p>	“Go back!”</p><p>	He stopped chasing her, only to drop into a fighting stance, both hands now hovering over the ball of light. To her horror, it began to grow under his manipulation, flickering and sizzling with unhampered energy, bigger and bigger until it was the size of a basketball. There were tears in his eyes, now, streaming freely down his face.</p><p>	“I said <i>go back</i>!”</p><p>	He launched the Cataclysm at Bunnyx. It streaked towards her like a bolt of lightning, hissing and snarling like a thousand angry cats. She only had a second to open her Burrow and escape. The Cataclysm flashed behind her like a firecracker, then vanished as the portal closed.</p><p>***<br/>
Fluff had once said to her that time could not be measured, only felt. This went double for the Burrow, with its hundreds upon hundreds of windows into hundreds upon hundreds of moments in time. Double it again with the way the familiar links of Bunnyx’s own time stream were in disarray, a weight on her shoulders so heavy it was hard to breathe.</p><p>	She needed to find the source of the disaster, the broken link, the one that would put everything back on the right path. It wasn’t easy, not with the time stream going to pieces around her, or with Chat Blanc pushing her at every step. Even while she was hidden safely in her Burrow, he was still somehow watching her, expectant, impatient.</p><p>	Angry, and angrier still, when she kept throwing Ladybugs at him, and pulling them back again when they broke down or failed. She could feel him cracking a little more each time, and she feared what these repeats were doing to his sanity, but she didn’t have a choice.</p><p>	There was no way to know how long it was before she resurfaced again, but it was too long. She was weary, and he was wound tight, a frayed thread about to snap.</p><p>	He stared her down, eyes cold and sharp. His claws flexed, but he wasn’t coming towards her. Yet.</p><p>	“I told you to go back.”</p><p>	“I’m trying.” She wanted to be as impatient with him as he was with her, but she was getting so, so tired. “You aren’t making it easy.”</p><p>	“I think I was very clear,” he replied evenly, too composed for the rage bubbling under the surface. “Go back and take the Butterfly from my father. End it before he ruins everything.”</p><p>	Bunnyx shook her head. “I <i>can’t</i>. Hawk Moth is a fixed point in the timeline; I can’t take his Miraculous without it tearing <i>everything</i> apart. It <i>has</i> to be you and Ladybug.”</p><p>	Chat bared his teeth in a snarl. Bunnyx heard the Cataclysm before she saw it building in his palm. She tumbled out of the way just in time, but getting back on her feet was a struggle. She looked up to see when the next attack was coming, but instead found Chat standing with his arms outstretched, gesturing at the ruined world around him.</p><p>	“Look around you! Everything’s already been torn apart!” He stormed forward, hands curled into tight fists. She was standing before he could reach her, but she lost her balance again when he swung for her.</p><p>	“I destroyed <i>everything</i>! My home! My family! My <i>Ladybug</i>! All because of <i>him</i>!”</p><p>	His swings were constant. He never seemed to tire, while she was stumbling just trying to keep ahead of his claws. But his attacks were frantic, full of that same desperate edge, and that was her saving grace. He wasn’t going to hit her while he was so unfocused, so unhinged. Another missed swipe allowed her to duck out of view, long enough to catch her breath.</p><p>	It was long enough for a switch to flip, for Chat to stop his attack and fall to his knees in hopeless despair.</p><p>	“Please, Bunnyx…I don’t know what else to do.”</p><p>	Silence settled like a wall between them. Not even the devouring sea below them could provide a sound with shifting waves. There were no birds flying above. They were completely alone.</p><p>	Bunnyx closed her eyes, and breathed. Four counts in. Four counts out. Then she stepped out from her cover and faced Chat again.</p><p>	“I wish I could go back where you want me to go,” she said. “I wish it were as easy as stopping a villain, but it’s not. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but this is bigger than Hawk Moth. He’s only a piece of the puzzle.”</p><p>	Chat looked up at her, blue eyes narrowed in confusion and pain. “I don’t understand.”</p><p>	Smiling, she knelt down and put a hand on his shoulder. “This whole universe is kept in balance by the forces of Creation and Destruction. Your Miraculous, and Ladybug’s. And as unfair as that is, that means you and her…a lot of the time, you have to make sacrifices in order to help <i>keep</i> that balance. And you trust <i>me</i> to make sure you both stay on the right track.”</p><p>	“Sacrifices…” Chat pulled away from Bunnyx, and looked out once more towards the empty landscape. “But I’ve lost so much already.”</p><p>	“This can all go away,” Bunnyx told him. “As long as I correct the right problem, this future should never come to be. You won’t have to lose her ever again.”</p><p>	Again, there was silence, this time serene. The sky remained unchanged, hazy and lifeless, but something in Chat’s expression seemed to shift, as though he saw hope in that milky horizon. She waited for him this time, though not sure what she was waiting for, until at last, he spoke.</p><p>	“May the second. One year ago.”</p><p>	Her heart skipped a beat. Did he mean…?</p><p>	He looked at her this time, expression placid…or just tired. “That’s where you should go. Fix things there.”</p><p>	“So what happened on May the second?”</p><p>	His expression tightened. “I’m making a sacrifice. Figure out the rest for yourself.”</p><p>	It seemed that was all Bunnyx was going to get, but it was more than she’d had before. She got to her feet again, bursting with a sudden energy that she didn’t think she had.</p><p>	“You might have to wait a little longer, but just hold tight. I’ll find out what happened and fix this, I promise.” She smiled at him again, soft and full of relief. “Thank you, Chat Noir.”</p><p>	He smiled ruefully back. His tail twitched lazily behind him as he turned back around, retreating to the edge of the roof to continue watching the unchanging scenery. There was a slump to his shoulders, now, all traces of the hope she’d seen before swept away like dust in the wind. Her heart sank.</p><p>	“I’m not Chat Noir anymore,” he replied. “I’m Chat Blanc.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is unbeta'd, but it's a bug that bit me and wouldn't leave and I refuse not to be proud of it. This is the longest thing I've written in one sitting in a LONG time and I had a great time writing it. Feedback is much appreciated, though.</p><p>Also, come check me out on tumblr if you get the chance!<br/>Main: http://saiikavon.tumblr.com/<br/>Writing archive: http://saiikasnotebook.tumblr.com/</p></blockquote></div></div>
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